Because you're left behind
by TheWritingManiac
Summary: /In stories, it's always the same. If a boy likes a girl, he gets the girl. If a girl likes a boy, she gets the boy, and they all live happily ever after. And it's true, even in real life. Only sometimes, the story forgets to mention those who were left behind./ Rachel Dare's perspective on Percabeth through the years.


**Quick little one-shot because Rachel Dare is often played off as a bad character, and I _love_ Rachel Elizabeth Dare, ok? This is my take on her story.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy! :)**

In stories, it's always the same. If a boy likes a girl, he gets the girl. If a girl likes a boy, she gets the boy, and they all live happily ever after.

And it's true, even in real life. Only occasionally, the story forgets to mention those who were left behind. Or if they do, then they don't mention the feelings – those hidden, raging feelings – because it's not about the one who wasn't chosen, who wasn't loved like that. Because sometimes, it's _not_ crystal clear which girl or which boy, and when someone chooses, it's heaven for them – but torture for the other.

I have been left behind.

It all started with a boy. A boy with messy hair and bright eyes, a boy who was brave and quick and thought nothing of giving his life for his friends. After being chased by enemies and defeating them, he reached a safe haven, and met a girl.

This girl had to have been something special. They were young and innocent, and the girl thought she knew everything and the boy knew nothing. Because really, he was nothing special at the time. Just a lost boy who didn't know his father.

And when that changed, when the boy was accused of a theft he did not commit, he and the girl traveled across the country to get the stolen item back, risking their lives so many times they lost count. When it was found, they returned the item and then went to the safe haven. Then the boy was betrayed by a friend, and the kindling of a deep, unknown fear were lit.

And then later, the boy's friends were threatened by that fear, and he sailed – with the girl – to find an item that would protect them. By the time they had found it, they knew each other better, had gone through experiences others could only imagine. They saved their home and their friends and each other. They even raised a girl from the dead, and then all was quiet (but only for a time).

Because soon, when this boy and girl were just a bit older, they were out, saving more friends, saving each other, until the boy failed to save her. His friends were his family, his world, his dreams, and when the girl was taken, he searched for her with such a fire that it seemed he would have held up the sky to save her.

(And he did, in the end.)

But when he met me, while trying to find the girl, I might have saved him. I _did_ save him, and then when he left I thought _there goes another one._ I never thought I'd meet him again, quite honestly.

When I did, he had saved the girl, and was too dim-witted to realize they were growing up, that the boy and the girl weren't as young as they had been when they met, that this girl had felt a spark. And when she – with her long curls and striking eyes – stood outside the school, waiting for the boy, she didn't seem too pleased to see me.

The boy couldn't understand why. I could.

And then the boy and the girl came to me for help. I gave it willingly, because the boy couldn't see what I had become without him, knowing him for so short a time and yet not wanting to be without him. He was sweetly oblivious, because he was a boy, and both I and the other girl had felt that spark. Maybe the girl had acted on it – a quick kiss, sweet, soft, definite, hard, desperate, longing. And he hadn't realized any of those reasons, because he was a boy and I knew deep down, though I could try to hold onto him, it would really only be a matter of time.

When the adventure was over, the boy – he had memorized my number – called me and admitted the girl wasn't happy with him. Again, oblivious to why. Although I knew, I didn't tell him, though now I know I should have.

When he and I spent more time together, I felt strangely elated, even vengeful, because the other girl had not spoken to him at all since the last adventure.

But when someone from his other life, his home, came to tell him it was time for another save-the-world mission, I too acted on a whim, like the other girl, and kissed him. Quick, short, wishing, hoping, tasting, loving. His lips were soft and tasted like the sea, but I think even then I knew it would be the first and last time. Because I was trying to hold onto him, and the girl was trying to bring him back.

And she did, in the end. Because when he had to make a choice, he made it. He wasn't the hero, but somehow, he still was. I knew what I needed to do, and what he needed to do, and I told him so.

And I realized, when she kissed him, after the war, after everything they had gone through together: it was really him and the girl all along. No matter what I felt, no matter who I loved and what feelings I had, it was the two of them since time began, and they'd continue, against the world, against the odds, until the two of them became one.

(There are two ways that could happen: marriage, or death. It will come to either, or both.)

So they continued on, and I think I died a little that day. Because it was the girl and the boy who got together, who loved each other. And that boy, that dim-witted, messy-haired, beautiful boy had finally understood something I had understood so long ago: it was, it is, the two of them, that boy with bright green eyes and the girl with stormy grey. They loved each other enough to give their lives for the other.

The boy found the girl, and the girl found the boy, in the end.

But I was left behind.

 **Ok, so maybe it was a little sad, and a little confusing, and kind of unedited (I wrote it in one sitting and yeah. Don't kill me, please.) It's probaby a lot confusing if you haven't read the PJO books, but yeah. :) Please review because reviews are FF food. :D**

 **WM**


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